deltic9014

Brilliant, thanks a million. I have PM'd you my address.

Brilliant, thank you. I think I have all the necessary materials; plenty of track pins going spare, and some solid core wire that I bought by mistake which will do for the rodding.

Evening all, I'm trying to find a cheap way of making cosmetic point rodding for my OO gauge layout. Most people seem to use the Wills or MSE kits, which, while realistic, are a bit expensive for my budget-conscious modelling style. I thought of scratchbuilding from plastic, but discovered that it would work out almost as expensive as the Wills kits. Has anyone seen other methods used successfully that would wok out cheaper? Thanks in advance

Hi is this still available? I am an 18 year old ex-home educated student helping to run a model railway club for a small number of home educated students, two of whom are on the autistic spectrum. Having this track would help them to build a club layout. I'm sure the students would really appreciate it.

Love that last shot. Really gives the impression of the train at speed.

Dave, is it just my imagination or is that exhaust fumes in the shots of the DMUs? Seriously stunning stuff!!

Looks brilliant Chris. If there were more modellers with your skill level showing what could be done with an 8x4 layout, the format would probably lose a lot of its 'train set' reputation. Keep it up.

Looks good, will be keeping an eye on this.

One of my best exhibition memories was of a small N gauge layout where the owner showed us how he had built all kinds of bits such as lamp posts from scratch. Don't worry about the layout not being finished - I'm sure the viewers will understand why and be interested in how you've managed to achieve such astonishing levels of detail. Enjoy the exhibition

Hi Matt Looks like a great start. A few things you could consider doing scenic-wise if you've not already thought of them: 1. Some of the buildings, especially the farm on the hilltop, are obviously sitting on top of the scenery. Real buildings blend in, so if they're permanently stuck down a bit of grass or gravel round the edges will blend them in. 2. The farm needs an access road of some kind and a surface in the farmyard. This will also help with blending the buildings in. 3. This one could be tricky in N, but I would suggest the edges of the hill, particularly round the tunnel mouths and the cliff behind the loco shed, probably need some fencing of some kind. Also little things like weathering buildings and adding people, animals and vehicles could help bring it to life. I don't quite get what you're saying about the points, as generally Electrofrogs are more likely to cause shorts: they need careful wiring up to avoid this. However, Insulfrogs will cause a lot of locomotives to stall - maybe this is what's happening to you? Progress so far looks great - keep the updates coming. It would also be great to see some of your trains on the layout. Happy modelling

Hi everyone... Oh dear. I've been neglecting the thread - didn't realise it was so long since the last post. A busy summer of work and driving tests accounts for that. However, progress has been made with the diesel fuelling point: The hardstanding was made using corrugated card to bring it up to rail height, then smoother card on top, and finished using concrete effect images from Textures.com. The fuel tanks were made using a kitchen roll tube cut down to size, rolled tighter, card glued to the ends and masking tape to create the section effect. Then the whole tank was sprayed with grey primer and glued to card based supports. The filler pipes are made from bits of kit sprue. The most recent addition is this little prefabricated hut to act as the pump building. This has been built from card and will be painted to represent concrete. A trip to the East Lancashire Railway diesel gala on Sunday resulted in, as well as riding behind these... ...the acquisition of a load of bits from a 10 pence bargain box, including these two Triang wagons. The flatbed has had wire side rails added and is now in service. The green wagon has had a repair to the broken coupling hook at one end, and a loop glued to the other - I intend to replace the buffers and then repaint it. Neither are accurate representations of anything as far as I can tell, but for under 10p each they fill some gaps in the fleet. That's all for now; driving test number 5 on Tuesday (eek) and if I pass, up to the Great Electric Train Show next Sunday, and maybe some more bargains! P.S. The Princess is running again, no idea what caused the problem, but a good service got it going.

Hi Dale How have you found the Pacer to run? My brother has one which runs OK... when the wheels are clean. It seems to pick dirt up very quickly and the slightest bit causes it to stall. My current plan is to wire the two cars together so that both motors can be fed from all the pickups, and possibly install some extra pickups. Let us know how you get on with it.

RBE, Stop posting pictures of the real railway and passing them off as your model!

Good to see some progress. Keep it up.

Love the tube station. Keep it up.

As far as I know the only major error is the inclusion of the solebar on the chassis (which of course the Bachmann model has as well). Hornby also moulded on paint guide lines for the BR green livery, which are present on all liveries and should be removed. Otherwise it's pretty good, at least to my eyes. As far as detailing is concerned, I have fitted wire sand pipes to the sandboxes on mine, and you could remove the moulded handrails, lamp irons etc and fit new ones (I haven't bothered as I am retaining the original paint job). Someone has probably produced a flush glazing pack - I don't know for sure. Also have a look on www.emgauge70s.co.uk - there are some impressive reworks of the Hornby 25 (and various other old models) on there.

Love the TTA, I thought it was a pic of a real one at first. Keep the pics coming.

Good video, only thing is the Voyager should probably be running in the opposite direction for correct running line practice. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the scenery.

Brilliant idea Dougie. Hopefully the mods will think so as well.

Thanks guys, I will give your suggestions a try

I've been looking at my rake of Hornby mk1 coaches (the ex-Tri-ang? tooling, not the recent version) to see how they can be improved, and have a couple of things that I need some help with: 1) The sleeper coach doesn't have an interior. Would this be visible through the windows when in service, and if so, what does it look like? 2) The whole rake of coaches is the Hornby factory weathered version. It appears that Hornby just gave them a spray of track dirt colour along the bottom half of the coach. Unfortunately some are more heavily weathered than others, resulting in some of the glazing being weathered as well. If I detail the interiors, I want to be able to see through the glazing, so does anyone know a way to remove the weathering from the glazing without damaging it? Any help would be massively appreciated.

Looks good so far, and a period not often modelled. Maybe you could have a go at modelling the Wessex Trains pink mk2 coach set and matching class 31 - obviously given the size of the layout it would have to be shortened to about 2 coaches, but it would add some variety to the passenger operations. I am following this topic, so keep up the good work.

Love the bridges and the station building; a reminder that I should be getting on with the ones on my own layout...

Are you letting Thomas loose to cause havoc on your layout tsk tsk tsk... Otherwise progress looks good.

That's impressive Mike. I only hope my layout ends up a fraction as good. Keep it up.